Dave144239

Reliability has certainly improved, but the cars are so complicated it makes it difficult to work on them. My mechanic told me he never wants to change another A4 timing belt. His cost for the parts alone was $4400, and he had to buy special Audi-only tools to get to the timing belt.

SW17LS

Thats the big downside to any german car, just anybody can't work on it. Big plus for Lexus.

roadfrog

In my area alone, there are countless German car indy shops making a mint on all the idiosyncrasies involved in them...from special tools, to the numerous unique issues they suffer. Guess how many Lexus/Toyota indies there are? zero. They'd go broke.

FatherTo1

I sure hope our Toyota/Lexus/Honda/Acura indy stays in business. He was smart to locate his shop less than 10 minutes away from relatively affluent areas of Gold River and Folsom, CA. I spent quite a sum at his shop making sure our LS 430 and LS 460 were in tip top shape after purchase but lately it seems I'm only going there for oil changes, which he really only charges me $20 in labor after factoring in all of the parts. I sure hope other clients are keeping him busy because he's a smart and honest mechanic. I always try to promote his business on Facebook and Yelp and some of my mentions on CL, I believe, has prompted a fellow LS owner to drive from the Bay Area to get his car serviced by Loc. Here is another plug for Folsom Japanese Auto Repair https://www.yelp.com/biz/folsom-japa...ncho-cordova-2 (that's our old Mercury Metallic LS 430 in the business photos). The owner, Loc, recently added a third lift so I hope that means more demand.

bruceko

I can tell you now what the first year maintenance cost will be. I bought the Audi Care with the A6. $890 for 4 years/ 50k of maintenance. After that who knows what the maint will be.
My wife has a 2014 q5 tdi diesel. It has had no problems other than mice chewing on they soy based wiring. Actually we are making money on that one. just hit the 4 year end of warranty but because of the tdi suite we have been paid about $7000 from Vw and it gets a free bridge warranty until they have done a emissions repair if no repair they buyback the car for more than we paid for it
Over all I like the A6 but there are several convenience items I miss from the Lexus different German thinking